‘I’d be sick if there was anything in my stomach,’ Ali groaned.
‘It will make you more dehydrated if you throw up,’ Gerry warned. At that moment her own stomach gave an extra heave and she brought a revolting tasting fluid up into her mouth. She tried to swallow it down but instead she gagged and spat it down the front of her shirt. ‘Oh fuck,’ she moaned, and then spat again to try and get rid of the horrible taste.
Then she heard a new sound and realised that rain was beating down on the canopy. She was galvanised into action. She snatched up the empty water bottle and made a futile attempt to pick a hole in the middle of the canopy roof with her finger. Shit! Why wasn’t she ready? She looked round for inspiration and snatched up one of the support rods and she managed to force a hole with the metal end. Then she held the bottle underneath and she and Ali watched it fill with water. When it came to the top of the bottle she put it to her lips, drank and then spat it out. ‘Bugger it; it’s salty! All that spray has drenched the top.’
‘Try again!’ said Ali. ‘Maybe it’ll wash clean.’
She emptied the bottle into the raft and held it up to the hole again. It was a quarter full when the flow of water stopped. The rain shower had passed by. She tested the water. ‘Yuk! Still salty, but maybe not so bad.’
‘Keep it for when we get desperate,’ Ali suggested, then added ‘more desperate.’
They slumped back down and sat staring at nothing while the raft pitched about. Every now and again they would exchange a glance, but the effort of talking seemed too much as they focussed on their feelings of nausea and disappointment at their failure to collect more water, and they each began to contemplate their almost certain death from dehydration.
As evening approached the sea began to moderate and the raft resumed a more even rise and fall, although it still remained rougher than it had been in the morning. ‘The sun must be going down soon,’ said Gerry. She lifted up the canopy sides and they gazed out at a beautiful sunset, a bright red orb obscured sufficiently by the haze to enable them to look directly at it and a cloudy sky that glowed a luminescent pink. They watched the sun rippling as it sunk below the horizon and the colour slowly faded.
‘It’s still quite rough,’ Ali remarked.
‘I believe this is probably normal,’ said Gerry. ‘I think this morning was exceptionally calm.’
‘And the afternoon was exceptionally rough,’ said Ali.
Gerry glanced at him but said nothing. She suspected that exceptionally rough weather would tear off the canopy, toss the raft upside down and drown them, but perhaps that would be an easier death than dying of thirst. ‘Shall we pull up the side of the canopy again?’ she suggested.
‘I think so. I like to look at the night sky.’
‘It’s still partly cloudy, but I guess it’s better than just staring at the inside.’
They settled back down in the raft and gazed towards the horizon. Gerry wondered if this was a good moment to ask Ali about Gilgamesh again. She gazed over at him but he had his eyes closed and seemed to be asleep. She decided that she would wait until tomorrow before trying to elicit further information from him. She stared up at the stars alone with her memories.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
She was trapped in the sinking aeroplane fighting with a man named Barry Mulholland who had succeeded in stabbing her low down in the abdomen and although there was no pain in her dream world she knew that she was pregnant and her baby was in danger and across the other side of the cabin she could see Dan Hall but for some reason she could not attract his attention although she was screaming that she could not get her leg free and then she lost sight of him as the water swirled around her and then she woke up from the nightmare and realised that Ali had taken hold of her foot and was shaking her leg. ‘Gerry, wake up! Are you ok?’
She sat upright and stared across at him while her mind collected her conscious thoughts into order. ‘So we’re still on board the raft then?’ she said eventually.
‘I’m afraid so. I didn’t know if I should wake you. You were shouting out.’
‘Sorry, I must have woken you up.’
‘No I’ve been awake for ages. I’m too cold to go to sleep.’
‘I’m cold too. Let’s take the canopy down and wrap ourselves up in it.’
‘Ok.’
A few minutes work and then they were lying under the plastic sheeting.
‘Maybe we should keep it down and then use the cleaner underside to collect water,’ Ali suggested.
‘But what if it doesn’t rain, we’ll just get hotter, sweat more.’
‘Let’s see what the weather’s like in the morning.’
They lay in silence for a while.
‘Still awake?’ Gerry asked when she felt him shift slightly, but he made no reply.
‘You could tell me what was in the Gilgamesh document,’ she went on.
‘Ah, back to Gilgamesh again. What is the point of me telling you when we are both going to die out here? You cannot profit by the knowledge.’
‘What is the point of you not telling me?’ Gerry countered, trying hard not to sound irritated by his fatalism. ‘After all you did ask for me to come to Guantanamo Bay to see you.’
‘No I didn’t!’ he declared. ‘Remember I had no idea you were coming until the day you arrived!’
‘What?’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh… yes, of course, but you might at least satisfy my curiosity, even if there’s no longer any benefit to me. And besides which I did help your son escape.’
‘Escape? It was you who delivered him to the Americans!’ he said angrily.
‘No no, this was three months later. They were after him again, but this time I helped him get away.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘Very well. First of all tell me how you helped my son escape and how you ended up in prison. Then perhaps I’ll tell you about Gilgamesh.’
‘Ok then. I had just got back from this operation in the Gulf and I was taken off active duties because I was pregnant.’
‘Pregnant?’ exclaimed Ali. ‘You have a child?’
‘No, I don’t have a child…I… I had a miscarriage.’
‘Oh I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Yes I know, but all the same…’
‘Look, shall I tell you about Rashid or shall we discuss my gynaecological issues?’
‘Sorry, please go on with your story.’
Gerry described how she had gone back to Southampton, met up with Rashid and encouraged him to flee to Ireland.
‘When I spoke to Dean Furness just before he was killed he told me Rashid had been seen in Amman. He must have got clear because I was given all this grief and then kicked out of the service. I didn’t really put up much of a fuss because I had recently heard about Phil’s death and I was feeling rather downhearted as you can imagine. Then I went to visit my mother and on the way home I met Colonel White and…’ she stopped and looked over at Ali Hamsin. Under the light of a crescent moon that shone feebly through the clouds he appeared to be fast asleep. She wondered at which point in her story he had drifted off. She resisted the temptation to wake him up. She was uncomfortable and thirsty, and although mentally exhausted, her mind pored over her memories and would not allow her to sink into sleep. Maybe Ali’s years of incarceration had left him fatalistic, or maybe his religious beliefs had taught him to trust in the will of God. What was ordained was ordained and whether he was fearful or brave, only God would decide if he lived or died out here on this life raft on the Atlantic Ocean.